Contemporary ex-pat author trying to figure it all out.

Tumblr famous (of sorts).

Today I reached a fairly decent milestone in the social media platform that is Tumblr. 10,000+ people are following my blog (which was started and is maintained as a place for fantastic and eclectic marching band related photography, which came from ‘research’ for my YA books). As someone who has regular goals, watching my follower count tick over has been fun to watch. Once I passed 9,500 in November, I’ve pretty much been counting down to today.

The thing about Tumblr is that it seems to be one of the few things that I know how to do. It’s something I can do right. On days where my books are negatively reviewed, or a week where I sell a limited number of books, my little Tumblr account has kept chugging along. Now, I know all the hours spent maintaining the blog might not have translated to book sales, but I do love the little community I’ve grown. I’ve loved the people it’s put me in contact with. I love that no matter what type of day I have I can open the Tumblr app and know there will be reblogs, likes and comments from what I’ve posted.

I’m sure I could do more to make money from my website, but it hasn’t been a priority for me. Maybe it should be. Furthermore, I tried to do the same for Room 702 (starting a hotel specific Tumblr) and didn’t have the same results. And that’s okay. Not everything I do is going to be successful.

TL;DR – I love Tumblr.

As a bonus, here is a link to the most ‘viral’ image from my blog. While I usually tend to have about 100 reblogs/likes per picture (or so), this one skyrocketed past 30,000 and shows no signs of stopping.